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Monday, June 22, 2009

Pendragon: The Soldiers of Halla

Post by AshleyMy husband and I both finished reading this one. Unlike him, however, I've actually read the whole series---all ten books of it. He just read the ninth and then this one, the tenth. But we were agreed on our general impressions of the book: Cool concept, some holes here and there, really confusing and basically disappointing epilogue, but generally a fun read.

The series follows the adventures of Bobby Pendragon, a kid who's told when he's twelve that he's a Traveler, an individual chosen from his planet to try to maintain the balance in Halla---basically the universe. He travels through flumes (something like wormholes) from territory to territory (world to world), trying to foil the evil mastermind plots of one Saint Dane, a bad guy bent on causing all of the territories (ten in all) to collapse into chaos and thereby bring about the downfall of all of Halla. He does this by exploiting the worst propensities of mankind---pride, violence, greed, hatred, envy, etc. So Bobby and his team of Travelers, of whom he becomes the leader, along with his two best friends from his youth, Courtney and Mark, form the heroic team who combine their efforts in this final book to bring about the complete downfall of Saint Dane and the restoration of peace to Halla.

There were some unexpected twists and turns in the book, which was fun. That's something D. J. MacHale is good at---twisting the plot in directions you didn't expect. The problem is, you come to anticipate that there will be a twist. A bad thing? Possibly. I wish the series had been condensed a bit. Some of the books seemed a bit superfluous. A semi-important thing happens in each book that leads toward the ending, but I think some of those could have been doubled up and the series shortened. I was about ready for it to be finished around book 7, but since I'd already gotten that far, I had to keep reading to the end of the series. Book 8 was particularly hard to slog through. Anyway. They are generally fun books, and I'd recommend them to youngish teenage boys and girls. I'm kinda glad the series is done now, though. On to the next!